NK’s reckless challenge

Pyongyang should pay the price for rocket launch

After much speculation, North Korea fired a long-range rocket Wednesday morning in defiance of international condemnation and sanctions threats from the United Nations.

The launch is a reckless challenge to the international community that has stubbornly urged the North to give up its plan and consequently, the Stalinist regime will have to pay the price.

It’s dumbfounding that North Korea launched the rocket suddenly after mocking the world by hinting that there would be a delay for days. Indeed through the launch, the reclusive country proved its notoriety once again.

The North declared the launch to be a success but it remains to be seen whether this is really true, considering what had been claimed to be a success turned out to be a failure later.

The United States condemned it as a “highly provocative act that threatens regional security.’’ Japan’s envoy to the U.N. asked the Security Council to meet immediately to discuss sanctions against the North. Even China rapped North Korea over its rocket launch, demanding it comply with U.N. resolutions.

President Lee Myung-bak called an emergency meeting of his National Security Council and condemned Pyongyang’s rocket launch as a threat to stability on the Korean Peninsula and to the world. “Our government strongly condemns North Korea for ignoring repeated warnings and requests to cancel the launch,’’ Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Kim Sung-whan said in a statement.

The U.N. Security Council was expected to meet later Wednesday to discuss countermeasures in response to the launch, which is a clear breach of the U.N. Security Council resolutions. Worse yet is that North Korea may go a step further to conduct a nuclear test following the rocket launch as it did in 2006 and 2009.

A successful launch this time carries profound security implications, marking major progress towards combining an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capability with its nuclear weapons program. This appears to be an extremely serious matter to the U.S., given that North Korea is potentially capable of striking the mainland U.S. due to the successful launch.

With the launch, the Pyongyang regime clarified its intention to influence the Dec. 19 presidential election in the South. The North is reportedly trying to make a reconciliatory candidate elected by arousing fears among the South Korean electorate but this ploy won’t be successful. Rather, the North’s tricks may result in Seoul’s conservative forces uniting to the detriment of the liberal camp.

Needless to say, the international community must impose harsh sanctions on North Korea to such an extent that the communist country will regret its launch. In this regard, the Seoul government must feel greater responsibility because the severity of the sanctions will be different in proportion to how much effort it will make.

Hopefully, China under new leader Xi Jinping will act resolutely this time and we take note of its earlier warning against the North.

It’s quite baffling to confirm that nothing has changed in North Korea under Kim Jong-un, the new leader who took office a year ago following his father’s sudden death. <The Korea Times>